How Free Is the Will of the Individual Within Society

Conflict between Civil Obedience and Moral Freedom (Free Will and Personal Conscience) in the Discourses of Henry Thoreau, Martin Luther King, and Plato

People in societies, upon establishing institutions that provides and maintains order, unity, and peace within the society, are bound together through an agreement. This agreement, termed the "social contract," binds people together to commit subject themselves to the power of the government, where part of an individual's free will is given to it. The government acts as an agent, the representative of the people, in order to ensure that all members of the society comply with the laws of Nature, wherein humans are under obligation to follow.

In effect, the government plays a vital role in ensuring the society that peace, unity, and order are established. Any deviation or disobedience from the laws imposed by the society can result to punishment of the individual. Indeed, social institutions such as the government have its functions, as well as dysfunctions. The theme of social dysfunction through civil disobedience is thoroughly discussed in political discourses written by famous philosophers and writers like Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, and Plato. This essay analyzes and studies the similarities and differences among the literary works of these three writers, relating their works to the main theme that studies the conflict between civil disobedience and moral freedom (through the free will and personal conscience). The texts that follow shows a comparative analyses of the writers' works where the stance that Thoreau and Luther's works promote individual free will and personal conscience, as compared to Plato's pro-government stance in his literary work, "Crito," is established.

Henry David Thoreau, author of the 19th century discourse entitled, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, argues how the government can be both beneficial and detrimental to the welfare of the society. For Thoreau, the government is both "expedient" and "inexpedient," subsisting to the belief that "That government is best which governs not at all." This thesis is developed because Thoreau recognizes that while government is functional in that it acts as an agent for the society to preserve peace, order, and unity, it is at the same time, self-serving and exclusive. Over time, as society has become dependent to the government, part of the free will of each member of the society given for the social contract has been exploited, and used to abuse and control the members of the society. In effect, the plight of the society under the government is bondage, where the free will of every individual is neglected, where the social contract becomes ineffective: "Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?... Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right."

Clearly, Thoreau's stance illustrates how, before becoming obedient, law-abiding citizens of the government, one must follow first his/her personal conscience and free will. This is, of course, subsisted to on the assumption that members of the society have the right knowledge about what is the truth, and has a sense of morality. Martin Luther King, in his letter called Letter from Birmingham Jail, written in 1963, illustrates an individual's free will and moral conscience, i.e., moral freedom, in the face of adversity, not only of the government, but of the (American) society as well. Similar to Thoreau's position on civil disobedience as secondary only to moral freedom, King criticizes the white American society for propagating hatred and prejudice against black Americans: "Birmingham is probably the most segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality... unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts... unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches... These are the hard, brutal, unbelievable facts... I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate... who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice..."